The Riga Central Market

Riga, Latvia has an amazing downtown market. It was purpose built in the twenties using Zeppelin hangers from World War 1 and it is in Old Town. It is a 10 minute walk from my apartment.

This was my second time in the market. The first was during our house hunting trip in July - you know, the five days you  get to find a place to live for the next three years of your life. The second was with Martine, who has already been here a year and knows all the best places to shop for food in the market. She also took me to Stockmann's grocery section to show me beef, cheeses, spices as well as show me what I should or should not buy there. Thank goodness for the kindness of military spouses sharing their knowledge!

From there we went to the market. First Martine taught me how to ask for something in Latvian which is "Man ludzu schwa," (that's how it sounds not how it is spelled.) I bought a chicken for 3 Euros in the meat market, as well as an onion, lettuce and herbs. Outside, I found someone selling enormous pomegranates for 2 Euros. The garlic was .60 Euros.

My 3 Euro chicken. Very tasty!

Then it was onto the cheese, butter, yogurt section. And Latvians love their cheese! This is the homemade butter I bought for 7.50 Euros. It doesn't look like a huge amount until you realise it made two batches of pastry and the filling for four batches of butter tarts and I have some left over. It needs to be frozen as it won't keep, probably because it of the amount of water in it. It made great pastry but I am not sure if it was the butter or the egg or even the sugar for my butter tarts that didn't work, but they didn't taste the way they tasted in Canada. As Chris said, they were still good, they just didn't taste like Canadian butter tarts.

My chunk of butter.

Butter tart made with Tate and Lyle dark brown sugar I bought at Gemoss. Very molassesy! Had to switch to light brown sugar.

Eggs from the store. 

Light brown sugar butter tarts. My oven is very small so you can only use small tins.

I bought my eggs at the grocery store and boy did I get a surprise. Eggs do not come as a dozen here but in 10! They have a very hard shell and a strong orange coloured yolk. I've been told to wash them before use or crack them into another bowl rather than over your baking.

Spices at the |Market

Vegetables inside the market.

From the cheese section it was on to the next portion of the market. Fish! The fish section and selection is huge. Fish are so fresh that they are gasping for air on the counters. They come smoked, boned, not deboned, there are bits and pieces for making soup, octopus, shrimp, oysters, everything. I bought this piece of butter fish. It is very smoky and you slice it thin and put it on crackers. I wonder if it would be good in soup?

Butter Fish

 I will definitely go again! But I also know I'll need to go again with a guide!  The walk back home was lovely. I took a different route home and the sun was shining! Riga is beautiful!

Walked over the canal on the way home and attempted a panorama shot. Still haven't mastered my new phone. Look at the beautiful architecture.

The canal.